This will NOT be a grievance thread or a grip thread about voting being a valid way to end any games in progress. The idea of the thread is to come up with criteria for how a game should come to an end by vote. I would like any and all posts that turn into a grip about votes or posts bringing up bad feeling from a previous game to be deleted. There will be plenty of things debate, without having to bring in old baggage about the past, this is about moving forward, and setting things up for Future games.
Keep the thread focused on creating a working set of rules/guidlines for ending a game, by vote, and preventing arguements down the road.

Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference.
The US Marines don't have that problem.
President Ronald Reagan

I think to avoid the ugly fracas we've had over the last couple of days the only ironclad solution is Shardin's suggestion - mail-in votes going directly to ][avok, let him tally them and publish the result. This also keeps it anonymous to avoid any finger pointing and animosity.

The down side, and it's a big one, is the amount of work it requires our already over-worked host to take on. I don't think that's fair.

So the compromise - require everyone to have their own forum id and post when you vote. There's no way to really enforce this or sort out who's who if there are couple of votes more than we have accounting posts.

I guess I question if there's any satisfactory alternative. I don't really buy the idea that CM is rife with people looking to screw over vote integrity in games they're not playing. In short - I'm not sure anything air tight can be done, and I'm not convinced it needs to be done. Carry on as-is.

When the game is out of reach.
When there aren't enough players in the game.
The game has less then 25% of the total turns to go, and there is little room for much change.
These are what I think end voting is for.

When the subject of ending the game via vote comes up.

Everybody should be able to plead case for stopping or ending the game
Official Voting should be done Via email only.
Votes should be at least 2/3 Super Majority to end the game.
If a Vote to end the game happens there should be 3 turns before the game ends, to close up the last few things for all players.

Last edited by Shardin5 on Wed Feb 17, 2010 1:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference.
The US Marines don't have that problem.
President Ronald Reagan

Gilgamesh wrote:
So the compromise - require everyone to have their own forum id and post when you vote. There's no way to really enforce this or sort out who's who if there are couple of votes more than we have accounting posts.

The idea here is not just about the voting, its about criteria for a game to even come up to vote.
Granted some may believe there is no Criteria need at all.
I do believe that there needs some set of Criteria to avoid suprise polls,
Gamers will see a game is headed a certain direction, and what kind of Criteria is needed to end a game, and they wont/shouldn't be to surprised.

Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference.
The US Marines don't have that problem.
President Ronald Reagan

When the game is out of reach.
When there aren't enough players in the game.
These are what I think end voting is for.

When the subject of ending the game via vote comes up.

Everybody should be able to plead case for stopping or ending the game
Official Voting should be done Via email only.
Votes should be at least 2/3 Super Majority to end the game.
If a Vote to end the game happens there should be 3 turns before the game ends, to close up the last few things for all players.

I think there are some good suggestions Shardin, but I would propose that you might need a little more definitive than game out of reach or not enought players. Perhaps a game out of reach is defined as the leading player having twice the points of the next closest player, or having over 40% or 50% of the total score of all players combined. As far as not enought players may be when the total players in a game drop below 4 or 5. Finally, I think there are merits to e-mail voting, but I would rather Havok focus what little time he has on first keeping things running as smoothly as it typically does and second setting up new games. I think the little poles that are put up are a little bogus and the vote should be by actual posting from players confirmed in that game and only one for each player.

An Englishman is a person who does things because they have been done before.

An American is a person who does things because they haven't been done before

akshamu wrote:
I think there are some good suggestions Shardin, but I would propose that you might need a little more definitive than game out of reach or not enought players. Perhaps a game out of reach is defined as the leading player having twice the points of the next closest player, or having over 40% or 50% of the total score of all players combined. As far as not enought players may be when the total players in a game drop below 4 or 5. Finally, I think there are merits to e-mail voting, but I would rather Havok focus what little time he has on first keeping things running as smoothly as it typically does and second setting up new games. I think the little poles that are put up are a little bogus and the vote should be by actual posting from players confirmed in that game and only one for each player.

These are JUST suggestions, and we need to all define things. Personally the only time the game is out of reach by score is when the turns are getting fewer. Sometimes the writing is on the wall. I like the idea of a certain percentage, but alliances can swing this. A person's score wouldn't hit the percentage, but his alliances make him unreachable, towards the end of a game. Nothing is a chisled in stone kind of thing here, just guidelines to trigger and end of game vote.

Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference.
The US Marines don't have that problem.
President Ronald Reagan

1: No votes till perhaps ~75% of the game has been played.
or
2: No votes till one player has ~60% of the score.
or
3: An alliance has ~67% of the score.
or
4: No votes till 4 or more players have dropped / been destroyed.

If any one of the above 4 criteria is met after 50% of game is played,
then I don't see a reason to forbid a vote.

Understanding is a three-edged sword.Your side, their side,and the truth.

It would be best to drop the vote all together as long as 2 are willing to play the game should roll.
VGA Planet is a game that only exist through PLAYING the game not makeing up votes to end it. When you enter a game the intent should be to play the game not bring up a vote because a smack talking gank squad FAILED at their mission to pwn the ehco cluster.
I asked before and no one answered, What are the rules for dropping a game?

There is a stigma with dropping games and now, it seems, there is a stigma attached to calling for a vote, or even voting in favour to end.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't, damned if you vote the "wrong" way. I don't see how you're going to make everyone happy here.

If poll thresholds are going to be introduced (another admin headache but not as bad as the email vote) then I'd like to see a range of game lengths available.

edit - and then there's the question of what a majority is. To me it's 50% plus one. Your relative strength in the game should have no bearing. I see no reason to restrict when or why a vote can be called. If a majority want it to go on, it will go on. If a majority want it to end, it ends.

I think we're over-tinking the plumbing here and we're going to stop up the drain. Keep it simple, sweetheart.

I haven't ruined anything. I've either called for a vote or voted in one, all according to the rules of the game. If the rules change as a result of this discussion, fine. But we talked a lot the last time this all came up and nothing changed.